I think that we can learn something by observing other distro's choice for designs.

They too tend to have their pros and cons tho.

I will be glad if everybody who reads this,posts his/hers opinion on different designs.What was liked about and disliked about them.Also which was the favorite...just comment them,so we will know what the masses likes these days.

mepishttp://www.tuxmachines.org/gallery/mepis60r1kinda bloated...too much useless icons in the bottom panel,too much stuff loading at startup as defaults...very nice wallpaper.Something that the user would usually like to keep for a few days before changing..2 desktops,panel too big..

ubuntuhttp://www.tuxmachines.org/gallery/ubu606rwonderfull icon theme,wonderfull window theme...everything specially made to fit the earthly look,but this time with some nice glossiness to it.Ubuntu team showed some interest in the default designs...no ugly default old gnome icons,no defaults.They thrusted the brown to a more orange,which is a good idea too...hmm..also nice customisation on the menus , but...2 panels take too much of the screen and the user oftenly removes one of the two.

There's not a one that I'd keep any longer than it took me to change to my plain sky-blue background. I particularly dislike the Ubuntu brown.

I think the theme VectorLinux has used in the VL-5.1 releases is as good as any. I don't know why there's all this hoo-ha over changing it. I also don't there there's all this mystical meaning behind backgrounds and icon choices.--GrannyGeek

well,yeah-you are right....its not such a big deal.Everybody has his own taste but original theming of the default desktop gives the distro a nice polished look.Its afterall up to you the devs to decide it afterall...and if what you have is what you want to keep the same,then do it.I dont really mind it at all.Imho,just trying to help anyway possible.

well,to be frank , I dont like any of these designs.Maybe parts of them,but not the whole.

What these distros are probably trying to achieve is to create a unique feel to the default gui desktop. (imho, gui and desktop- two words annoying to real devs).And if that look is somehow "magically" achieved by a special combo of simple elements such as "wallpaper","icons" "themes" and "colors",that will somehow leave its mark in the new user's memory...then,in order to leave a mark ,these elements need to be unique and better looking than the one's that the user has been seeing before that.Seeing that same old blue,that we see in every kde-default wallpaper,with the same old icons,everything-same old,same old... leaves nothing in the memory of the user who tried a distro for the first time. How do we achieve such uniqueness,so the distro doesnt look faceless to the mainstream? You tell me.

hopefully I managed to explain what i see in the words "default theme" and the way that it is connected to Primal human perception.

I for one have never been converted by the looks of a distro. I just didn't like any of the debian based distro's because of the way they work. I used Gentoo for a while but the programs I wanted to use most badly didn't work properly for some reason (I used amd64 CFLAGS & CXXFLAGS, which might have been the cause). I also used Slamd64 for a while, but I missed the VL repo.

Looks are important, for many that is the only real difference between distros, and first impressions count.

Bad design can be damaging. But that is more than just simple looks. Bad design is about lack of consistency, menu structures that are too cluttered or not very logical, 15 confusingly named applications for one task, lack of tools – these are what matter more than just the visual gloss. I think Vector looks good, the design job done on IceWM for Vector 5 standard was stunning, I had never seen that window manager look so good. In a multi manager distro getting the menus to look the same, ordered the same way is important. OK we are now moving to single manager/environment editions so that is less important, but even so care should be taken as to how they were structured. The old Debian sub menus for KDE and Gnome applications looked awful and was wasteful and confusing. It is all about ergonomics and utility.

Good visual polish certainly helps to grab attention but the rest of the design matters if you want to keep them.

I agree with Blurrymind. It does make a difference what the default look is to a new user. If it looks shabby and amateurish then one could think the rest of the distro is similarly sub standard.

Books are judged by their cover whether we like it or not. I initially looked at Vector back when it had the clawing wallpaper. I thought it looked cool and professional.

1.A proper default scheme is a lure.2.The promise of features and usefulness is about setting the hook.3.Easy intuitive use is about reeling them in.3.Support is about keeping them.

People have varying levels of interest in each of these four areas.

Number 2 is primarily the concern of those who run the Vector Linux web site.

Everybody is in the forum for number 4 and so obviously considers this very important.

Linux in general needs a lot of work on no.3. Having said that there are two forks in the road here. Try to be like Windows TM following the KDE, GNOME, UNBUNTU way, or go a more technical GENTOO build your own way.

There are of course many steps between these two extremes. I think vector is one of them. People will hold your hand in the forum but you have to learn some command line stuff. I am the type of new user who likes this (although I would like to make the learning curve a little less steep) but not every new user will. The choice of xfce4 as the only desktop environment installed for Vec6.0 is I think reflective of this middle approach.

I think the default scheme should be reflective of what vector is.

It should have a graphic background that looks professionally designed.This indicates the technical competency of the maintainers of Vector.The Xandros thing is a good example of a graphic that indicates stable professional reliability.

No one will keep the default background for long.There should also be really nice wallpapers available for screen shots. The DOE explosion shot ALTHOUGH REALLY COOL AND APPROPRIATE IN DYNAMITE doesn't belong in Vec 6.0 final. I hope that doesn't offend anyone but it could unintentionally scare off new users.

fedora install logo (the 8 sign) is very clever.pclinux: the window-frames are fine as well their colous. the photo is not special.

kateOS is lovely but a bit chidren-cartoon.

xandros splash also has a fine design - a game with stones is transformed. really good set logo and environment. The rest is the same story told many times - but that story is not good to be told thrice.

ubuntu has professional design, but the window frames are not carefully selected.

symphony OS: nothing special.

QUESTION: this smoky/weily design so favoured? This is a Mac design but I see it always retransformed. (ex.Vector paper where V is hiden in the symmetrical smoky design on dark blue. That is fine. I don't know if it was intentional but works for me.)

We like the way Vector Linux looks. We especially like the VL 5.1 fluxbox-rox look... we like it very much.

When we were distro-hopping, we were looking for a lean distro to run on our machine. We found VL 5.1, and it worked more efficiently than any other software system available to us. And it looked nice. We never changed any of the defaults, because it already looked very professional.

Now... Vector Linux prompts you to select your window manager/desktop at every boot. Perhaps each WM could be set up a little differently to capitalize on the different strengths of the WM in question? Perhaps these could all have a common theme, then?

And perhaps the user may decide which setup "Floats Their Boat," (so to speak)? </meow>

hanimal: with version 5.8 (beta 1 is now available) the developers of VL have decided to provide just one desktop environment (xfce). This avoids the confusion of window managers, the amount of development and fiddling associated with having each environment look good and work well, and enables us to provide more software on one CD.

You will still be able to add more window managers from the repository, however, if you so desire.

Logged

"As people become more intelligent they care less for preachers and more for teachers". Robert G. Ingersoll